Shahid Buttar

A wildfire broke out this morning not far from my sweetheart’s house at Reno. The West is burning, yet Washington continues to waste our tax dollars on weapons and wars for oil—which only accelerate climate collapse—while failing to adequately resource firefighters.

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure raping children is an impeachable offense.

NEW: Tennessee’s highest-security youth prisons are operated by a single private company. Former staff say they felt pressure to hide abuse and other serious incidents from the state and to handle medical emergencies without calling 911. with @wpln.bsky.social

The urgency of decisions that should have been made 20 years ago to protect the future grow increasingly insufficient as our leaders continue to bury their hands in the sand, and double down on a fossil fuel paradigm that threatens life on Earth. Read the rest…

new metaphor just dropped

What do Fourth of July celebrations routinely overlook? Frederick Douglas explained it all for us 200 years ago.

The war on Iran launched by the Trump-Netanyahu Axis of Evil has stretched on for far longer than its proponents guessed at the outset. As the damage to the global economy continues to mount, their desperation appears increasingly evident. open.substack.com/pub/shahidbu...

Israel’s depraved sexual torture of detainees has gone on for years. Nakba Day offers an apt moment to observe that human rights have been—and remain—in exile. shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/nakba-day-... open.substack.com/pub/shahidbu...

Many Americans are fed up with the complicity of elected Democrats, but most grassroots voices can do only so much to shrug off the yolk of fascist enablers. Californians, however, enjoy a unique opportunity by electing Green Party nominee Butch Ware for Governor.

May the Fourth is a great time to rediscover the profound allegory that prompted Lucas to write Star Wars. Its message holds immense relevance for America in 2026.

How many double standards can the press squeeze into a single news cycle? open.substack.com/pub/shahidbu...

Before I became an American, I was Lebanese. Parts of my family live in Lebanon. Anyway, you don't need those bona fides to feel this way, but what is happening in Lebanon right now is a complete outrage. The people there, who mostly are just trying to carve out a living, don't deserve this.

Laugh…or cry?

I don’t think unconditional surrender is imminent.

A man who was shot by Connecticut police last year and later died had to wait 10 extra minutes for another ambulance to arrive at the scene, after another officer having an anxiety attack took the first one.

The American empire is effectively impaling itself on Iran. We might have the world’s strongest military, but we have the most vulnerable economy—and Americans (including corporate Democrats) who put a maniac in the White House are about to find out the hard way. open.substack.com/pub/shahidbu...

It’s almost as if Trump ducked into a punch from Iran directed squarely at Wall Street.

Europe recognized Trump as a lawless bully when he threatened Greenland, and condemned Netanyahu for his genocide in Gaza—only to offer them crucial support on their war on Iran. Europe’s complicity with American & Israeli fascism is fueling the Third World War. open.substack.com/pub/shahidbu...

Reuters Exclusive "U.S. military investigators believe it is likely that U.S. forces were responsible for an apparent strike on an Iranian girls' school." "The strike would rank among the worst cases of civilian casualties in decades of U.S. conflicts in the ​Middle East."

Never forget that this what The Washington Post said when Noem was nominated.

Appreciate the talk about banning ICE masks in shutdown negotiations. But the non-negotiable should be congressional oversight of ICE detention facilities. Full access, no appointments, no permission slips. No compromise.

“I’ve never protested before - but I just watched 4th & 5th grade kids run away from our own government.” 😕🇺🇸💔 (From @crindivisible.bsky.social )

ICE murdered Renée Good in broad daylight. Less than 3 weeks later, they killed Alex Pretti, shooting him 10 times. Every day, we watch as people are ripped from their cars, their homes, their lives. We can't allow ourselves to look away from this cruelty. Abolish ICE.

I will give Suozzi more credit than he gives himself. He knew what the vote was. He just figured the way to "win" was to support the funding because that's more "centrist" and buck the Democratic majority. But morally, he knew what this was about. He ended up wrong morally AND politically.

Everyone still think athletes will avoid DHS (ICE, CBP etc) racial profiling? #WorldCup ⚽️

an administration staffed to the top with degenerate liars

Another proud day for America.

MLK raised crucial questions that America never even bothered trying to answer. The fascist dystopia and accelerating global climate crisis to which many Americans are finally opening their eyes are the tragic results. It didn’t have to be this way. open.substack.com/pub/shahidbu...

We are living under what amounts to martial law. open.substack.com/pub/shahidbu...

Ask yourself. If ICE is going door to door, what’s next? Armed federal agents took a man away in handcuffs. A woman came out of the house and said the man was her husband. It also appears ICE used an administrative warrant, not a judicial warrant. That matters….

"The Pentagon used a secret aircraft painted to look like a civilian plane in its first attack on a 'drug boat,' killing 11 ... the laws of armed conflict prohibit combatants from feigning civilian status to fool adversaries into dropping their guard, then killing them. That is a war crime."

Remember: chemical weapons are internationally banned in war, with good reason. Why are governments allowed to use them against their own people?

That awkward moment when your past foreign policy faceplants in real time.

What can history teach us about what happens when a populist strongman with an idiosyncratic taste for low interest rates undermines central bank independence?

The fact that right-wingers always think that left-wing protesters are being paid should make you start wondering how much of that is simply projection.

"Obama’s drone strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan a decade ago paved the path of Trump’s arbitrary drone strikes in the Caribbean this year. "Clinton’s congressionally unauthorized airstrikes on Serbia set a precedent abused by subsequent presidents, including Democrats."

THIS WAS AN ACT OF WAR AND A VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW. But put that aside for a second… What’s wild is that Marco Rubio isn’t even pretending anymore. He’s not hiding that the invasion of Venezuela is about oil. This is going to end up a dumpster fire…

The people who most loudly complain "Why can't these immigrants just stay in their country???" are the same ones who most loudly celebrate American military and CIA interventionism in these countries to overthrow their governments. And they lack the self awareness to understand their own hypocrisy.

Invading Venezuela would be bad enough without the revolting complicity of the liberal establishment.

Nothing about this is okay. The President of the United States is on Fox News right now gabbing about the U.S. attack on Venezuela before addressing the American people. So the new order of information is: Truth Social → Fox News → the public → Congress, maybe?

Washington’s war on Venezuela is an international crime. But don’t blame it on Trump. Both parties are up to their necks in military industrial corruption and have been for decades. open.substack.com/pub/shahidbu...

Did you know? Every year, the Supreme Court’s nine justices fill out a form that discloses their financial connections to companies and people. Our database allows you to search for organizations and people that have paid them, reimbursed them for travel and given them gifts.

watching my favorite christmas movie and what is possibly the great american comedy about class and race